WHAT'S IN A DAY?
The clouds building up on the skyline. The colours of the autumn leaves in the garden where I walk. Flowers of late autumn, deep purple, bright red; petals like hands clasped in prayer. What's in a day that I can't take away and keep in my room where the fire burns brightly and the pictures on the wall keep watch over the hearth?
As shadows lengthen and the moon rises, the dark line of the hills merge with the sky.
Sleep comes easily.
Do not, in a day, let your mind be the depository of the worlds charms or miseries, the glamour or gloom of fallen stars, or the newsreel pouring out phenomenal matters of state. Let your mind be kept like the inside of a temple, which it is, (1 Corinthians 6:19) and let nothing enter that does not do so reverently, so that whatsoever things are pure and holy may find peace and joy there. (Philippians 4:8) Blot out the street, the market and the TV screen's sensations and let your mind dwell in God's daily presence within, and in flowers, trees, birds and skies without.
I have for too long lived in the swamp of media stench. This year I made a decision to live more like a stranger in the world, one who passes through the towns and cities and out of them like Lot out of Sodom. I am not a consumer and life is not a product to be bought or watched on a screen. Life is too precious to be treated like a murky pond.
The clouds building up on the skyline. The colours of the autumn leaves in the garden where I walk. Flowers of late autumn, deep purple, bright red; petals like hands clasped in prayer. What's in a day that I can't take away and keep in my room where the fire burns brightly and the pictures on the wall keep watch over the hearth?
As shadows lengthen and the moon rises, the dark line of the hills merge with the sky.
Sleep comes easily.
Do not, in a day, let your mind be the depository of the worlds charms or miseries, the glamour or gloom of fallen stars, or the newsreel pouring out phenomenal matters of state. Let your mind be kept like the inside of a temple, which it is, (1 Corinthians 6:19) and let nothing enter that does not do so reverently, so that whatsoever things are pure and holy may find peace and joy there. (Philippians 4:8) Blot out the street, the market and the TV screen's sensations and let your mind dwell in God's daily presence within, and in flowers, trees, birds and skies without.
I have for too long lived in the swamp of media stench. This year I made a decision to live more like a stranger in the world, one who passes through the towns and cities and out of them like Lot out of Sodom. I am not a consumer and life is not a product to be bought or watched on a screen. Life is too precious to be treated like a murky pond.